- Dialogue of ministry in Angola; a land rising from past challenges -

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

USA: Angola's Silent Partner

The advance in relations between
Angola and the United States has been
“fairly incredible” in the barely two
decades since diplomatic recognition,
says US Ambassador Christopher J. McMullen,
who took up his post in March last year.

“The first Africans to reach the territory
which comprises the United States today were
slaves coming from Angola,” says Maria da Cruz
Gabriel, executive director of the US-Angola Chamber of (USACC). “They became
part of the first permanent English settlement
in Virginia. This common historical past should
be seen as an asset to bring US and Angola
co-operation even closer in today’s world.” Whereas other countries’ involvement in
Angola’s reconstruction such as that of China,
Brazil and Portugal, is highly visible in road, rail,
construction, and airports, American efforts are
often “under the radar”, McMullen believes. The ambassador likes to think of the US as
Angola’s “valued-added, silent partner”, involved in top-end economic partnerships which affect the whole economic strata.

McMullen is anxious to point out
that American relations with the Angolan people
go back much further than the period of the
Independence struggle. Indeed, they go back
many centuries.

Ambassador McMullen outlined three
major elements contributing to the solidity
of the relationship. First of all, the American
missionaries who went to Angola in the early 1800s
and cemented “people-to-people” connections.

An important consequence of these
missions was to bring literacy and educational
opportunities to a broad spectrum of Angolan
society. The late President Agostinho Neto’s
father was a Protestant pastor, and a New York-
based missionary board granted Neto himself a
scholarship in 1947 to study medicine.

The US missionary connection with Angola
is still strong, according to McMullen, but
more-secular organisations have widely taken
on the missionaries support role in social
development. Today’s multitude of US-supported
non-governmental organisations (NGOs) provide
continuity in health and educational projects and
keep up fruitfully direct personal relations with
Angolan people all over the country.

A second base element in US-Angolan
relations, and of extreme economic importance,
is of course the oil industry. American company
involvement in Angolan oil exploration dates
back to the second decade of the 20th century.

Chevron is today’s emblematic and longest-
standing American presence in Angola’s
hydrocarbons sector, having drilled the first
onshore and offshore wells in 1958 and 1966,
respectively. It was also the first, in 1997, to
operate a deepwater well. Even when the United
States had no official ties with the Angolan
government after Independence, Chevron
continued to operate normally in the country.

The third component to US-Angolan relations
is “government-to-government”. According to
McMullen, many US government agencies
long had informal connections with Angolan
government ministers even when there was no
official recognition.

Angola has been running a trade surplus with
the US in recent decades, dominated by Angolan
crude oil sales. This does not daunt McMullen.
He believes it is in the nature of the oil trade that
there will be a lack of balance, and points to a
similar relationship with Venezuela. In 2011, the US-Angola trade totaled $1.5 billion US exports to Angola and $13.6 billion Angola imports to the USA; the majority of these US imports is Angolan petroleum.

The US government also partners NGOs and United Nations bodies involved in education and vocational
training through the US Agency for International
Development (USAID). The same NGOs may
also be supported by American corporate social
responsibility efforts.

United States energy companies are one of
the largest recruiters for workers in Angola from
Angolan communities in the United States. They
also provide training for their personnel and send
many to the United States to study. In addition,
the Ministry of Petroleum and Sonangol have sent,
and continue to send, students to the United States
for training at universities around the country, in
particular to Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma. (Sonangol Universo Magazine)

What is the CEML Hospital?

CEML (Centro Evangelico de Medicina do Lubango) is a church-related healthcare institution in the southern Angolan city of Lubango which provides medical services for an estimated 50% of Angolans who currently have no alternative coverage.